The present application relates generally to an improved data processing apparatus and method and more specifically to mechanisms for performing data pre-fetching based on user demographics.
Mobile Internet usage has spiked in recent years as smartphones, tablet computers, and other mobile devices have become mainstream computing and communication devices. As opposed to using such devices for voice communication and exchanging voice messages, the dominant usage trend is the use of mobile devices to access web sites and rich media, e.g., television programs, movies, and music, via Internet data connections. Various mobile applications, or “apps,” may be utilized to access such content. Furthermore, a growing number of users are accessing media content as a result of scanning barcodes (e.g., Quick Response (QR) or Microsoft tags in printed advertisements or billboards) and/or capturing images (e.g., using Google Goggles™) with their mobile devices to learn more about products and locations.
All of these trends are leading to increased congestion on mobile networks. This reduces network performance and, in turn, reduces the quality of the user experience in consuming media via mobile devices. As a result, data caching mechanisms have been developed where copies of frequently accessed files are stored physically close to the point of usage. Examples of such data caching mechanisms may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 6,871,236 and U.S. Patent Application Publication Nos. 2009/0326810 and 2010/0088614.